NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 135
remains should be taken in hand quickly, because they are fast disappearing from
various causes.
We have started a Photographic Survey of Essex in an admirable way under
Mr. Victor Taylor's superintendence, and I think we have every hope that in a
few years that will become an important branch of our work.
There is another little "fad" of mine which I hope to realize during the next
few years. I propose to make an attempt to register the voices of eminent men
in the county and of those who have presided over the meetings of the Club.
Then we have the vanishing speech of the natives of Essex. School Boards
are invading the remotest places in our County and destroying all its peculiar
idioms, and I am afraid that the dialect songs of Essex will utterly disappear in the
course of a few years. I should like to secure some record of these old harvest
home songs and native carols on permanent phonographic cylinders or discs
before it is too late. I am told that in the Saffron Walden district there is a
real witch—or, rather, a woman who believes in witchcraft. Essex was always
famed for witchcraft; and it would be well to register some native "incantations''
while there is yet a chance!
In conclusion, the English language is, I think, deficient in expressions of
gratitude, and I cannot perhaps do more than say again, "I thank you."
(Applause.)
On the motion of Mr. Whitaker, a vote of thanks was passed
to Professor Meldola for presiding; and the guests then
separated.
[Thanks are due to Mr. Edwin C. Davis, Chief Reporter of the Stratford
Express, who undertook, single-handed and for a merely nominal fee, the very
arduous task of reporting the foregoing speeches, and did it most admirably. ]
NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
MAMMALIA.
Whale at Mersea in 1299.—Mr. Miller Christy sends
the following extract from The Wardrobe Accounts of King
Edward I. (Society of Antiquaries, 1787), page 76:—
Custus circa balenam per vicecom' Essex.—Johanni de la Lee,
vicecom' Essex' et Hertford', pro denar' per ipsum solutis diversis
hominibus custodientibus quandam balenam captam in insula de
Merseye; uno dolio vacuo empto pro eadem balena infra ponenda;
sale empto pro eadem salienda; cariagio ejusdem de predicta insula
usque Staunford ad curiam; una cum expens' unius hominis equitio
conducentis eadem balena1 ibidem mense Maii .................. £0 14 8
1 ? Eadem balena—sc. eadem balona.